I'd like to share with you a small project I made last fall. I was invited by my mother-in-law to come to her relief society craft activity (a church-based women's group). Lookie! Lookie! Look at what each of us made:
It's my only Thanksgiving decoration that I have. Usually by Thanksgiving, I'm putting up the Christmas items, of which I have many. And I realize this picture could be better. Ah, well.
We started out with a 2x4 piece of wood that we sanded smooth. Then we painted. I had this lovely fall-ish brown, while others had a maroon color. Once painted, it had to dry completely. Some people used a hair dryer to speed up the process. I always recommend that you smooth/spread out any globs of paint (big or small) to seed up the drying process.
Once it was dry, it was time to apply the vinyl lettering. Follow the instructions on the packaging. Just make sure you go nice and slow. Take your time.
I applied a second set of words over the Thanksgiving word. It says "Because We Have Been Given Much." Take your time in lining up the letters. Make sure they are where you want them to be.
Our vinyl letters came with this scraper tool to help smooth them out.
Be sure to note the details of your block of wood. I had a pretty deep gouge in mine (even though this was the smoother side) due to a knot in the wood. I had to be real careful when applying the vinyl lettering. This was where I needed the letters to go to be centered, so that meant doing the best I could when applying it over the gouge.
Also, I didn't like how the H at the end ran into the G. So I trimmed the H so it didn't close off the G and make it look like an O.
Once the letters were in place, I was done! Others at the event chose to sand the edges a bit to give it more of a "country cottage" look. That isn't my style, so I left mine as is. It's cute, yeah?
Thanks for looking,
-Jana
